My Riffs

We make such big judgements based on so little evidence. All the time. Most often we do this about other people, but we also do it about situations. We hear a couple sentences about someone or a situation and make a broad judgment on it.  Learning to reserve judgement until we have all the facts is a sign of maturity. It also helps us and others. When we reserve judgement we don't write people and things off so soon. So we end up having more higher quality options and opportunities.

If you go fast you can do more, but you won't likely have the quality. If you go slow, you will do less but it will have more value. Our society exalts fast, but it's slow that really gets peoples attention and makes things better.

We base much of what we think based on the surface. That’s literally superficial thinking. If you dig just a bit below the surface, there’s much to discover. Question, explore, dig. You’ll find more.  

Our perspective of people changes based on our assumptions. Often we go into something with some preconceptions and those preconceptions are very hard to overcome.  So what if we go into things assuming the best? The outcome would more often than not be better. 

We usually forget, quality is more important than quantity. That is of course, unless you want McDonalds. Then quantity wins. But in real life, for you and me, quality always outweighs quantity. We have to deprogram ourselves from thinking that more is more. Oftentimes less is more.

We’re not gonna get it right every time. The good news is that life is pretty resilient. At least it’s as resilient as we’re willing to be. It’s as resilient as we are willing to work. So mistake recovery is not only possible, it’s necessary. Become a professional mistake recoverer. Cause we were never be free from making mistakes. Hopefully we make fewer and fewer of them as time goes by, but we will continue making them no matter what. 

It's probably a sign it's more important when you don't feel like doing it. Important things can be enjoyable, but very often valuable things aren't things we jump to do. They usually more of us.

Sometimes the hardship is the very thing that will save you. We look at troubles and hardship like they're unwanted, unwarranted and without utility. But those hardships can often be our saving grace. No hardship is without benefit. Valuable things only come from hardship.

The motivation behind questions matters. You can ask questions to gain knowledge or wisdom. You can ask questions to stir up trouble too. There’s rhetorical questions. There’s sarcastic questions too.  So questions can better us or cause more issues. Better to use them to make things better. 

Networking is critical to growth. From a business and personal perspective. You will never go as far alone as you could with a good network. So build a good network and it will take you further than you could go alone. And you will also contribute to the network and help someone else go further than they could alone.

Feeling frustrated at a person or situation? I've learned that more often than not, it's you that needs to change. You likely can't change the person or situation immediately to your satisfaction. However, it's likely highlighted something in you that needs to change. Once you change yourself, it's amazing how the frustration will subside.

Kindness seems to be the best approach. Kindness doesn’t have to mean pushover. Kindness can be strong. But kindness will win. People remember how you made them feel and kindness is the one thing you want people to take away from interactions with you. 

One measure of maturity is the ability to not respond in kind to negativity. Whether it's critisicm, accusations, lies, etc. Maturity means you can respond graciously to no matter what you may be facing. 

What a unique skill perseverance is. It's almost a combination skills. Someone who perseveres figures out a way to continue. They may have to employ different methods and tactics to preserve. Just braun isn't enough to persevere. Just brains isn't enough either. Perseverance is a unique skill of being smart, being strong, being willing to bend but not break, to be flexible where you can but be rigid where you must.

Gratitude -> Joy -> Strength You can have joy without gratitude and you can’t have strength without joy. 

The Bible says bad company corrupts good character. Character is too valuable to be squandered to bad company. It seems that your good character is at risk by who you spend time with. Good company, good character. Bad company, bad character. 

When something dies, something else is always born. How does a clear cut forest regrow? How does a grass fire and black field eventually turn green? In life we see many ends, but they're not just ends. They're also new beginnings. Losing something always means finding something else. You can't gain without losing. This should help shape our attitude toward losing.

We’re now two weeks into a new year and many won’t take inventory of their life for another 50 weeks. 50 weeks is enough to drift far from your intentions. Taking regular inventory is necessary to stay on target. It doesn’t take very long at all to start a small drift. A small first becomes a huge miss given much time. 

 Spend much more time rewarding correct behaviour rather than correcting wrong behaviour. 

The food you eat effects your health. That's a given. But maybe we don't pay enough attention to what we feed ourselves through our eyes and ears. Because that effects our health as much as the foods we eat. Maybe this is why social media overall has a negative effect on society. It's feeding us jealousy, negativity, false pictures and so much other toxicity. It may be time to go on an eyes and ears diet.

The cost of perseverance is saying no to everything else. 

If you do good, it will come back. It may not come back through the channel you hoped or foresaw, but it will come back. It may not come back fast, but it will come back. 

 What makes one feel significant? The more significance is derived from others acceptance the more vulnerable our significance is. The better palace to derive significance from is what do we for others. If we are helping people, we don’t need validation and acceptance from a certain group of individual, we have significance from our actions.  

A good thing to let go of is expecting other people to be like us. The amount of grief we can avoid is huge if we learn this. Allow others to be who they are without it bothering you. This creates a better environment for both yourself and them. Diversity is strength. 

You can have fear or faith in your drivers seat. Letting fear drive won’t minimize the amount of accidents you get in though. Fear leads to as many or more accidents. Faith will lead to fewer and more recoverable incidents. 

You never win someone with force. You only win them with love. You can force someone into compliance but you will break them not win them.

We feel many different things in a given day. We experience many different emotions in a given day. We have a lot of different thoughts in a day. You may or may not be able to stop negative emotions, thoughts and feelings, but what you can manage is your reaction to them. When you can control your reactions, you have mastered yourself.

Everything around us is held in a fine balance. So what we do carries a lot of importance. One habit change, one wrong move can really set our balance off. Act carefully, because you may throw things out of balance.

I think I have about 2347 chargers in my house. Chargers for shavers, phones, exercise equipment, toothbrushes and on the list goes.  What we all should grab hold of us, what charges me? Good friends can be a charger. Good food can be a charger. Sleep can be a charger.  Everyone’s list may have similarities but also looks a little different. Know what charges and energizes you and do more of that. 

Real change happens deep inside us and then manifests itself externally. But we have to allow it to work deeply in us. We have to face some very uncomfortable truths and things that we don’t like first. When we do that we can allow it to change us inside. And it usually is a very uncomfortable process. It rarely feels good while it’s happening. But eventually things inside start lining up better and we feel better and lighter. Then we externally manifest those internal changes. Face the internal uncomfortable truths. That’s where meaningful and lasting change begins.